


switch (redux)

by airdeari



Series: self-indulgent aoilight within [9]
Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Clover + Aoi BFFs XOXO, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 23:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12641427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari
Summary: Two-time Nonary Game survivors with dangerous jobs have a lot of emotional baggage. On a related note, three mentally ill people probably shouldn’t share a small bathroom without some planning if one of them is blind, or things might get unnecessarily dramatic at 12:47 P.M. on a Tuesday, for instance. But they’ll be okay.





	switch (redux)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Switch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8142487) by [airdeari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari). 



> This is a redo of a story I wrote over a year ago because I'm much better settled into their characters now, and unfortunately better acquainted with orthostatic hypotension and vasovagal syncope with convulsions, and I know that this could have been _much_ more explosive, so I'm gonna. Make them explode.
> 
> The first ~1000 words are the same for the most part, and then it changes.

Light said he used to be more of a morning person before he started playing so many concerts at night. It was hard for him to keep his internal clock in synch with the rest of the world when the light of day never made it through his eyes. He woke up between eight and ten most mornings, though occasionally he could sleep until noon after a late night. It was half-past twelve when Light, with a blanket draped over his shoulders, trudged groggily into the kitchen, where Clover was packing veggies and fruits in preparation for a long shift at the café, and Aoi was tossing himself a salad after a morning full of phone calls and errands.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Aoi teased.

“ _Afternoon_ ,” Clover corrected with a sneer. “I thought I wasn’t even gonna see you today! I’m gone until late tonight, remember?”

Light, whose face had fallen when he heard Clover give an indication of the time, sighed, “Yes, I remember.”

He moved slowly through the kitchen, gripping rather than touching the edge of the countertops to navigate. Aoi wondered if he had just woken up, but when he stopped Light for a good-morning kiss, he tasted mint, felt the touch of two hands, and even smelled the floral citrus of Light’s orange blossom shower soap. He touched a hand to the back of Light’s head and felt only a cool dampness, as if his hair had been air-drying after a shower for at least an hour.

“You sleep okay?” Aoi asked. “I thought you went to bed pretty early last night.”

Light frowned; so did Clover. “I did, didn’t I,” he murmured. “If I’ve been up for about an hour and a half, how long was I in bed?”

Aoi glanced at the clock on the microwave and dialed back the time in his head to count the hours. “Uh, over twelve hours, actually. You… feeling okay?”

“Maybe you’re coming down with something,” Clover suggested, playing with the zipper on her plastic bag full of carrot and pepper slices.

The wrinkles of doubt smoothed away on Light’s face. “That sounds likely,” he decided. “Preemptive apologies may be in order, Aoi.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up. Go sit down, I’ll fix you somethin’.”

Light did not have much of an appetite, it turned out. He was content to drink a large glass of orange juice for its Vitamin C, but ate only a single slice of toast with jam. Over the mealtime conversation, they discovered that his mind was as sluggish as his body, despite how long he had been awake. He said he had only started feeling more tired since getting up. Clover had ten minutes before she had to leave but had not yet changed into her uniform. Her worried eyes locked onto her brother.

“How about you just go back to bed, babe?” Aoi said. “If your body wants sleep that much, you should probably listen.”

Light twisted his empty glass around in his hand. “Probably,” he mumbled.

“You went off your antidepressants, right?” Clover blurted.

Aoi frowned, first at Clover, then at Light, then back at Clover when he decided that Light would not be able to appreciate his frowning.

“About a month ago, yes,” Light said, reaching underneath the table for Aoi’s hand. “By recommendation and under supervision. I’ve experienced no ill effects.”

“Well, what if it… what if it came back?” Clover said. “You used to… you were always sleepy like this, remember? And you didn’t eat, either.”

Aoi squeezed Light’s hand. Light was slow to squeeze back. With his other hand, he slid his fingers slowly down the sides of his glass, drawing lines in the remaining condensation.

“A cold seems more likely at this point,” he said. “If it persists, I’ll address it. You don’t need to worry.”

Clover worried anyway. She stood rigid with her hands clasped tightly in front of her stomach, chewing her lip.

“If it’s the afternoon,” Light said with an accusatory grin, “aren’t you late for your café shift?”

“Nah, it’s not one yet. She’s still got a few minutes to get out the door if she wants to make it in time,” Aoi said. He squeezed Light’s fingers between his as he slipped his hand back. “But she’s still not in uniform, so she’s _gonna_ be late if she doesn’t hurry it up.”

“Whatever!” Clover groaned, stomping her foot. “I can change there! All the other girls change there, anyway, and it still counts as clocking in on time.”

Light rested his cheek in his palm with a lazy smile. “What more do you want from me, Clover?” he sighed. “I’ll rest. If you’re concerned about tonight—”

“It’s not about tonight!” she protested. “It’s about _you_.”

He set his mouth in a hard line. “We’ll have to find another time for this fruitless discussion,” he said, rising swiftly from his chair. “I’m doing just fine. You should… get… going.”

It was another one of those moments where the possibility played out in Aoi’s head before he saw it happen. He never knew if it was some kind of micro-SHIFT, or if he just subconsciously noticed the small details—the way Light’s arm wobbled as he held the back of his chair on his ascent, the sudden loss of affect on his face as he struggled to end his sentence, the uncertain sway of his lanky body—and predicted what would happen next if he did not make a move.

Aoi jumped up in such a frenzy that his chair clattered to the ground, but it was not the only chair to topple. Light leaned too heavily on the back of his chair, throwing it and himself off-balance as his hand slipped off of his only support. Like every time that Aoi ran to catch Light—usually during a mishap with stairs or a similar stumble—he remembered lunging forward and throwing his hands behind Light’s head but never how he got to holding Light’s weight securely in his arms.

A beat late, Clover shrieked. Over the sound of her voice, Aoi called, “Light, you okay?! You awake?!” as he lowered Light’s limp body to the floor, watching his twitching face for signs of consciousness.

Light jerked his head up, and his limbs gave a jolt. Just as Aoi was about to say his name again, Light’s head shot back down again. His arms writhed. His legs kicked. His fluttering eyelids showed only the whites of his eyes.

Aoi snapped his hands back, throwing them above his head. Clover screamed again, and Aoi realized that the terrified voice mumbling, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” was his own, but above it all he heard Light’s head banging against the floor. He shoved his hands back underneath Light’s head, feeling Light crash into his fingers again and again.

Then Light’s blank, twitching face became a deliberate frown, and his fluttering eyelashes turned to blinks. His body still twitched for a few more seconds before it calmed.

“Light?”

Aoi was trying to keep his voice calm, but over his shoulder he heard Clover’s shrill breaths getting faster and faster.

Light gave a frown again, then a soft, breathy, “What?”

“Light, I’m takin’ you to the hospital,” Aoi whispered.

Light craned his neck back with a look so incredulous it even had a hint of a smile. Aoi could focus on nothing but the way it felt when Light’s head knocked back against his interlaced fingers again. He sucked in a gasp, and he heard a squeaking sound from Clover.

“What on Earth…?”

“Listen, Light? You… you just had a seizure.”

Light’s eyes went wide. Aoi’s voice sounded so pathetic—high, weak, and pleading. When he looked over his shoulder, Clover had tears spilling out over her lashes coated in fresh mascara.

“That’s… that’s not possible,” Light insisted. “No… that must have been… I was…”

“Light, just shut the fuck up, we fucking watched it, you had a fucking _seizure_ , and we’re going to the hospital.”

He forced one arm under the crook of Light’s knees, and the other under his neck. Light tensed up as soon as Aoi gripped his shoulder.

“No—Aoi, I remember, it was only—this isn’t—do _not_ —”

Aoi settled his feet underneath him. Lifting with his legs, he hoisted Light into the air.

“ _Aoi_.”

It was almost a shout. Light’s hands shot to Aoi’s neck and squeezed. Aoi did not know whether it was out of a need for something to hold onto, or because Light wanted to break his neck, but he felt his carotid getting compressed. He jerked his neck free of Light’s hold.

“Put me down,” Light said, much quieter now, and Clover let out a sound like a whimper when she heard him.

“I ain’t fuckin’ putting you down, are you kidding me?!” Aoi yelled. “You just had a—”

“Put me down,” Light repeated.

“—you collapsed and had a fucking _seizure_ , Light, this is—Clover, get the door. Get the front door, I’m—”

“ _Put him down!_ ”

Aoi almost dropped him.

The sound of her voice was fire, but the look in her eyes was ice, fear and hate coiled together into something that hurt to gaze into. Her tears had carved grey streaks down from her eyes to her red cheeks. Her teeth gleamed, and her lips quivered as every breath came faster and sharper than the last.

“Clover, what the hell? I can’t—”

“He said put him _down_!” she screamed, jabbing a finger at the floor. With a blink, another tear dropped, drawing another quick line down her mottled face.

“Jesus Christ,” he growled, stomping past her shaking stance, “lemme at least get him to the couch or someth—”

“Put him down _right now_ , Aoi!” she shrieked as he walked away.

“Give me _one_ fucking second, alright?!” he yelled.

With much more force than necessary, he kicked one of the fallen chairs out of his way. It clattered and slid along the linoleum with the kind of sickening scrape that digs into the teeth, then it crashed into the wall. His arms were shaking, though Light was far too thin to put any strain on his muscles. He was sucking in air through his clenched teeth, and it came out in shudders.

He dumped Light indelicately onto the couch as soon as he reached it. Light’s mouth snapped open for a gasp of air.

“Con—convulsive syncope,” he stammered. “It’s from orthostatic hyp—hypotension, postural—orthosta—”

When he brought his hands to his face, his right was trembling. Aoi grabbed him by the wrist before he even realized he had snapped out his arm, and then he could only hear the sound of his heart thudding in his chest.

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about,” he demanded.

“It’s c-c—it’s caused by a lack of blood flow to,” Light said weakly, “to the motor cortex in the brain—a temporary loss of blood caused by—”

“Light, what the fuck are you saying. Light. Are you okay?”

“I’m _telling_ you I’m okay if you would just _listen_ ,” Light snapped.

“Aoi, let him _go_.”

Aoi’s hand snapped open. The last time he had heard Clover’s voice like this was when he woke in the middle of the night to the sound of it, punctuated by Light’s soft murmurs of comfort, and her own hiccups and sobs. She spoke in thin, whistling inhales and exhales. Her stance wavered with every shallow, rapid breath, back and forth, back and forth, clutching her hands under her chin, piercing her own skin with her long, pretty fingernails as tears left trails like spider’s legs from her eyes.

Light jolted straight up when he heard her. “Clover,” he uttered. “Clover, I’m alright. It wasn’t a seizure. Aoi, how long did the convulsions last?”

Aoi froze up. Time had stretched when he saw Light twitching lifelessly on the floor.

“I—I dunno, maybe—”

“No more than ten or fifteen seconds?” Light asked.

“I guess.”

“A true seizure would last noticeably longer than that.” With a click, Light unlatched his prosthetic arm from its socket. “This was syncope. I only fainted, Aoi.”

“Oh, you _only_ fainted?!” Aoi shouted, throwing his arms out to the side. “Okay, you didn’t have a seizure, but you’ve been feeling like shit all morning and then you just _fainted_ out of nowhere, and that’s fucking fine, I guess?! Light, you need to go to the ER, you piece of _shit_!”

Wincing, Light clutched his prosthetic to his chest as he curled his knees closer. “It’s not out of nowhere,” he protested. “It’s… admittedly, this is the first time I’ve lost consciousness, and I haven’t been formally diagnosed, but—”

“What the—you _knew_ about this and you didn’t see a doctor?!” Aoi grabbed his left shoulder and shook. “What the _hell_ , Light. You fucking—what the _fuck_ are you thinking, you shithead?!”

“It’s orthostatic hypotension. Lowered blood pressure upon standing,” Light shot back, his lips curling. “It’s the same mechanism that causes anyone to feel lightheaded when getting up quickly. I have naturally low blood pressure, so the effect is more pronounced for me, especially when I suddenly add an extra arm to my circulatory system. There’s no treatment other than staying hydrated, maintaining higher sodium levels, and taking care when getting up quickly. Forgive me for not wasting my time in a doctor’s office to be told that.”

There was a tremendous clatter in the kitchen, a cacophony of fumbles until the inevitable smash of glass and splash of liquid.

“Jesus,” Aoi groaned as he spun around. “Clover, what the hell are you doing?!”

“ _Aoi,_ ” Light warned, his tone deadly.

She devolved into sobs at long last: pathetic, whimpering sniffs and gasps that rang between the walls of the kitchen and the wooden cabinets. Aoi let out a sigh as he marched back to the kitchen, to where Clover stood surrounded by shattered glass and water, holding the half-empty pitcher to her chest. The streaks had turned to ashy smears across her cheeks, washing out her complexion with gray.

Aoi gave her feet a glance to check her shoes, then nodded her to the doorway. “Clover, c’mon, it’s fine, I’ll clean this shit up,” he groaned. “You gotta get to work. Light’s gonna be fine, I’ll take care of it.”

When she looked up, Aoi saw a look in her eyes he had never seen in this timeline. The last time he saw it, it was the last thing he ever saw before an axe smashed his head open. For that moment, she was consumed with too much hatred for her tiny body to hold.

This time, instead of an axe, it was a Brita water pitcher.

He crossed his arms in front of his head and shut his eyes at the moment of impact. The first hit was the filter sliding out of the top, and then the rim of the pitcher banged against his wrists, and somewhere in the middle of it he was hit with a hard wave of cold, pinning his clothes to his skin with icy water. Although he tracked the movement with his eyes, predicted the blow, and braced himself in a perfect reaction, he stood frozen, stunned, with water seeping into his clothes and dripping down his skin when all was done.

But it was not done. Aoi heard the crunch of glass under her shoes as Clover stomped across the floor. Before he could lower his arms, her hands shoved against his gut as she let out a cry that sounded as if she were trying to shout, but her voice was too weak for force.

“You’re the _worst_!”

Aoi snaked his arms around his stomach, lurching from the physical blow as well as the emotional one. Clover clasped her hands together, raised them above her head, and swung them down against Aoi’s shoulder again and again until she had whittled him down to his knees, shrieking all the while.

“I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I _hate_ you! Why are you so _mean_?!”

“ _Jesus_ , what the hell are you—?!”

“ _Go away!_ ” Her next strike was heavier, but slower, and a sob cut between her words. “Just—go away, and leave us _alone_!”

He grabbed her wrists and pushed back to save his aching shoulder. “The hell’s gotten into you, Clover?!”

“ _I don’t want you here anymore!_ ”

Her arms were like wet noodles when she tried to wiggle them free from his grip. At that moment, the hate in her eyes flipped for one awful moment to fear.

“Go away,” she whimpered. “Please just go away.”

Aoi snapped his grip open immediately and she snatched her hands back with a gasp. He braced himself for another of her pitiful assaults. Instead, she bolted.

The last fleeting glimpse Aoi got of her face was full of tears and terror. “ _Clover!_ ” he screamed, and his voice broke in the middle of it.

By the time he raced out of the kitchen, Clover was already well out of sight. The tall shape of Light rising from the couch twisted his mind, his stomach, his whole body. A tingling heat rose up from his chest and flooded his face. He opened his mouth, and he felt his raw throat preparing to shout again.

He had been shouting at Light and Clover all this time, filled to the brim with what sounded like rage. But as with Clover, it was only a thin veneer covering up his overwhelming terror. He swallowed hard, then opened his mouth again.

“Light, for the love of God, just sit down right now,” he begged. “You’re killin’ me.”

Light came to a sudden halt, turning his head towards Aoi. With an expression that was equal parts agonized and resigned, he leaned back into the couch. Aoi’s shoulders sank five inches each with the relieved sigh he let out.

“Clover?” he called. “Clover, God, don’t go anywhere.”

In the empty foyer, he stuffed his feet into sneakers without tying the laces. He kept vigil on all the doorways as he grabbed blindly near the coatrack for something to throw over his shoulders.

“Don’t go anywhere right now, okay?” he said. “Stay here with your brother. I’ll… I’ll leave, okay?”

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and found a wallet. His phone was already tucked into the pocket of his jeans. A spare key hung from a hook in the kitchen, but beyond a mess of shattered glass, and maybe he did not deserve a way to come back anyway.

“I’m leaving,” he said. “I’ll… I’ll go to the café and tell your boss what’s up. Just _stay here_. I’ll go.” He reached for the doorknob. “I’m going.”

He heard Light call his name as he swung the door open. He closed it behind him quickly enough that he did not have to hear anything else.

Although he was able to shove himself out the door, as soon as he was out in the hallway heading towards the stairwell, he got that sick feeling in his stomach that weakened his limbs and slowed his pace. He recognized depression’s desperate clawing at his insides, fueled anew by this anxiety, urging him to stay inside, to speak to no one, to refuse to move, to let his body decay. The promise he gave to Clover to tell the café management why she was skirting her shift was the only thing that got him into the stairs, but at that point, he came face to face with a window, and he gave in.

He pulled out his phone. He did not have the café’s number, but he could find it online if his phone could still reach the Wi-Fi from here, or if it could get through the cinderblock hell that made this stairwell a dead zone for cell service, and maybe if he could remember what the damn café’s name was, and—

When the door behind him burst open, he jumped into motion to avoid the eyes of a stranger. At the blur of pink hair in his peripheral vision, he moved even faster.

“Clover, shit, I’m going, I swear I’m—”

He heard a stifled yelp, and then she had both hands wrapped around his sleeve. His heart beat so hard it made his whole body quake from the impact.

“I don’t know what to do,” she squeaked.

She would not let him get a good look at her face when he turned around. Her hair and her arms shielded her when she ducked her head low.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do,” she kept repeating between gasps, her voice muffled. “He’s—I don’t know what to—I dunno what—he’s gonna—I—I dunno what to do, I—”

“ _Fuck._ ” He grabbed one Clover’s wrists back and started tugging towards the door. “What happened _now_ , is he okay? Is he conscious?”

Shaking her head vigorously, she clamped down on his wrist and yanked back. She looked him right in the eye, tears and streaked makeup and trembling lips and all, and everything was terror. The moment Aoi felt his face changing, she buried her face in her arms again and let out a loud sob.

“Hey, hey, Clover, it’s okay,” he said in a hushed voice. “I know. I know. It’s okay, we’ll figure this out. Let’s get you back home, okay.”

Her next sob was a desperate squeak. Still clinging to Aoi, she dragged her upper arm across her eyes, then twisted towards her other shoulder to try again.  “L-Light,” she managed to say, then, “c-can’t—Light—I can’t l-let—I h-h-hafta—”

Light had told him how very closely he was intertwined with Clover in morphic resonance. He would feel her every shuddering sob, the dryness in her throat from each breath rushing through her, the individual pounds of her frightened little heart, no matter how much she wanted to hide it from him.

“We’re gonna figure this out. It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay,” he said. “Breathe out, okay? Just like he always says. Breathe out.”

She tilted her head back, blinking away the tears, as she gave a shaky huff. Her overwhelmed little lungs tried to draw back air too soon. She let out a choked sound, and then Aoi could not tell whether she was coughing or sobbing.

“Hey, it’s okay, you can do this. You’re doin’ good.” He wrestled his arm through her grip on his wrist until she was wrapped around his hand instead. “Gimme a good squeeze, okay?”

Though it was tight enough to make their hands go white, he doubted he had her full strength. She began a slow exhale before he even had to tell her, and he knew how much he hated it when Light patronized him with those babying words of encouragement and warm smiles, but he was so utterly fond of her, so genuinely proud.

“Atta girl. You got this.” He gave her a light squeeze back. “Tough kid.”

When she shut her eyes tight, a tear fell out of the left one. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered in protest.

The Clover he thought he knew would not fall to pieces like this. She would sooner cling to a terrible solution and soldier on until it destroyed her and everyone around her than give up and depend on someone else to protect her loved ones.

“You _did_ know what to do,” Aoi said. “He said it got worse when he’s dehydrated and you went and got water, right? You’re doin’ good.”

She did not hold her breath for as long as Light would have liked. “I broke it.”

“It’s okay. It’s just a glass, you know it’s okay. It’s… it’s scary. I’m scared, too. S’why I was fuckin’… ” Cringing, he held her hands even tighter. “You’re right, y’know, callin’ me out like that. For screamin’ my fuckin’ head off like that, I…” He let go of a dark laugh. “You knew what to do there, too, see? Kick me out on my ass if I ever pull that shit again. You’re right. M’sorry. Sorry if I made it worse, too.”

He let his hand relax. Her breaths had a little shake to them, but they had a slow, calm rhythm.

“You’re a good kid, Clove,” he said softly. “Need you here, y’know. Keep me in line.” He laid his other hand on top of her tight fingers. “We’ll take care’a that big dumbass together. You ready to go back?”

She captured his second hand by sliding her thumb around and on top of it. She inhaled deeply, then nodded.


End file.
